Following President Donald Trump's announcement that he would begin to roll back important regulations on the financial industry, including the Conflicts of Interest Rule, Tom Perez issued this statement:

"Plain and simple: By threatening to eliminate the conflict of interest rule, Donald Trump is ripping away $17 billion a year from working Americans and putting it in the hands of Wall Street. They know this is a giveaway to rich bankers: Trump's own economic policy director, who went straight to the White House from Goldman Sachs, said today he wanted to restore "unhealthy" options to the retirement marketplace.

"This rule stands for the simple proposition that financial advisors must act in the best interest of the consumer when giving retirement advice. It's really that simple. Wall Street spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying against the conflict of interest rule but today, they have a friend in the White House to do their dirty work. It was Trump's billionaire Wall Street friends who sat with him today during his announcement and who, in Trump's own words, will benefit most from these actions.

"President Trump must now answer this question: Why are you putting the profits of Wall Street over the best interests of millions of working Americans?

"In the name of middle class workers saving for retirement, families buying their first home, and millions of Americans still recovering from the housing crash, we cannot let Goldman Sachs write the rules for our country.

"Today's action is yet another promise broken and only we can stop it by standing up to President Trump. Americans have not let up on Trump's harmful agenda thus far, and we cannot back down now. I will continue to fight like hell to help protect American workers from bullies like Trump because our country is better than this."